Tumbling Mirth is an anecdotal look at the Royal Canadian Air Force from its origins in 1924 to the time of its unification in 1967. During those years the Air Force was the RCAF, and members were proud to serve their country. The author, Douglas Harvey, served for twenty-two years and Tumbling Mirth is a collection of his stories and tales remembering what it was like to work in the air force, with cartoons drawn by Warrant Officer Ray Tracy.
I chuckled quite a few times reading these stories and imagining Grandpa telling them. Eric Gilbertson MIT 2008, 2010 Grandpa's book is fun to read. It's just amazing all that Grandpa went through as a line man on the telephone company. It makes hiking up Mount Washington in January seem like hiking along the beach. Matthew Gilbertson MIT 2008, 2010 Grandpa doesn't talk about the fighting during the World War II. He talks about the many towns he went through and the people he met. He thinks more about the good things and experiences rather than dwelling on any bad ones he might have had. Jacob Gilbertson St Vincent College 2012
English describes the development of a uniquely Canadian selection system that attempted to match the aptitudes of aircrew candidates to the duties they would perform and the evolution of the RCAF's training program from a haphazard system with enormous attrition to one that became the model for many modern systems. He traces the development of aviation psychology and the treatment of psychological casualties of air combat. English pays particular attention to the LMF controversy and the RCAF's response as well as the effect of morale and leadership on the psychological well-being of, and casualty rates among, Royal Air Force and RCAF bomber squadrons. In exploring the human dimension of air warfare, an issue that has been widely overlooked in military literature, English demonstrates that personnel considerations have at least as much influence on the effectiveness of air forces as material and technological factors.
During business trips and family vacations over the years, Arnold has been able make repeated visits to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC and to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This addition to his series of "Island Boy Photobooks" takes you on a photographic visit to those shrines to mankind's adventures in air and space. With more than 700 full color photographs taken by Arnold and his brother Steven, this book catalogs the collection of the National Air and Space Museum and the historic exhibits at the Kennedy Space Center, showing how the displays have changed over the years. If you have any interest in aviation and spaceflight, this is a "must have" addition to you library.
The A-10 is the Air Force's unlikely success story, an airplane designed to support the Army, and one that ground troops came to venerate. Originally conceived with the express purpose of destroying Soviet tanks, the Air Force only developed it to keep funding away from the Army’s response to the mission, the AH-56 Cheyenne helicopter. Inspired by the biography of a tank-busting German pilot in World War II, the engineering and design of the A-10 fell to Pierre Sprey, a precocious civilian who'd enrolled at Yale when he was just 15-years-old, and now, barely 30, wasexiled to a Pentagon backwater with little, if any, supervision. The end result was one of the finest military aircraft ever built, a plane essentially constructed around a 19.5-foot, 4,000-pound cannon that fired 30mm depleted uranium bullets at a blistering rate. Looking like it was built from discarded airplane parts, it was probably the ugliest combat aircraft ever built, thus the “Warthog” appellation. But it was also an incredibly reliable ground attack aircraft, beloved by ground troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Despite repeated attempts to replace it with stealth aircraft and drones,over 280 A-10s remain in service today, serviced by dedicated and imaginative engineers and maintainers, and defended by a fervent cohort of advocates descended from the Military Reform movement. This is the story of intra-service rivalries, Pentagon obsessions with speed and stealth over tactical simplicity, and an aircraft that shows no sign of obsolescence as it nears fifty years in service.
"Tender and illuminating. A beautiful debut." --Rebecca Stead, Newbery Medal-winning author of When You Reach Me A heartrending and hopeful debut novel about a nonverbal girl and her passion for space exploration, for fans of See You in the Cosmos, Mockingbird, and The Thing About Jellyfish. Twelve-year-old Nova is eagerly awaiting the launch of the space shuttle Challenger--it's the first time a teacher is going into space, and kids across America will watch the event on live TV in their classrooms. Nova and her big sister, Bridget, share a love of astronomy and the space program. They planned to watch the launch together. But Bridget has disappeared, and Nova is in a new foster home. While foster families and teachers dismiss Nova as severely autistic and nonverbal, Bridget understands how intelligent and special Nova is, and all that she can't express. As the liftoff draws closer, Nova's new foster family and teachers begin to see her potential, and for the first time, she is making friends without Bridget. But every day, she's counting down to the launch, and to the moment when she'll see Bridget again. Because Bridget said, "No matter what, I'll be there. I promise."
The Hubble Space Telescope has transformed our understanding of the universe, revealing new information about its age and evolution, the life cycle of stars, and the existence of black holes, among other discoveries. This book tells the story of the Hubble Space Telescope and the people responsible for it.
When author Frank Strobel returned from Vietnam, he felt as if he had used up a great deal of his personal "life force" during that year. He worked very hard that year-physically, mentally, and emotionally-and experienced almost every feeling known to man at a very high intensity. The Devil's Disciple: Different Sides of War presents a compilation of his experiences in Vietnam, exploring this intensity and recalling the speed with which events moved during his time there. Strobel's missions during wartime were not for the faint of heart His experiences helped him to understand that war has an impact beyond just the fighting involved. There are people, young and old, affected by war. They lived in the villages that he visited as part of his tour of duty. In some of his experiences, he talks about the children he met in the villages of Vietnam and their love for American bubble gum. Using hand signals and an occasional interpreter, he was able to communicate with some of the children and older people in the villages, learning about them and about their lives. In The Devil's Disciple, Strobel shares his personal experiences during one of the most challenging wars the United States has fought.
